


Loose Ends

by ambyr



Category: Ki and Vandien Quartet - Megan Lindholm
Genre: Canon-Typical Adventure, Cultural Misunderstandings, Established Relationship, F/M, Farce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:22:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambyr/pseuds/ambyr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ki delivers a load of cargo to Bitters, Vandien finds an old acquaintance unexpectedly glad to see him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loose Ends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Edonohana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/gifts).



Bitters in late autumn was more pleasant than Bitters in summer, if only because the cool air helped the fish stink less. Ki poked her head out of the cuddy and got a mouthful of hair for her trouble as the wind whipped it back into her face. She spat it out, rummaged one-handed behind her for her cloak, and finally stepped into the early morning light. The sky was pink from sunrise, and the market deserted. Even Vandien still slept. Ki felt no need to wake him but instead savored the quiet as she walked to the pump and broke the skin of ice on the basin. She would have preferred to camp outside of town as she often did, with no company but Vandien and the team, but too-vivid memories of the creature encountered on her last, desperate ride to Bitters made the strength of town walls for once seem worth the trade.

By the time Ki returned with two heavy buckets for the team, Vandien was awake, stretching lazily on the wagon's seat. She knew he saw her coming when he arched his back more flamboyantly, though he dropped the pose as soon as his tunic crept up and exposed a faint line of his skin to the wind.

"A chill morning," he said softly, mindful of the other teamsters that still slumbered beside them. "We could go back to bed a while, and see if it improves."

Ki shook her head, though the offer was not without temptation. "I don't know when the customer will arrive, but the sooner I finish that business, the sooner we can be gone. We won't make it through the Old Pass again so late in the year, but we can at least overwinter in Dyal." Even that was far from her preference, but the money to haul the saplings west from the Silnian Wood before snow closed the mountain routes had been too good to pass up.

"It has the Kerugi weaving hives to recommend it," Vandien agreed. "A new cloak for me, and a scarf to match your eyes. You'll be the best-bundled teamster on the roads come spring."

"And the poorest," Ki reminded him. "Kerugi work doesn't come cheap."

"Neither does yours. I heard the arborist's wails after you finished bargaining with him in Sil Deep."

"It was a fair fee," Ki insisted, though it was true the man hiring her had made a production of it. "A cartload of trees is no small work for the team." She patted Sigmund, who had finished slurping from the bucket and begun nosing around for grain.

Vandien hopped off the seat and went to find the last feed sack while Ki busied herself refilling their waterskins from the other bucket. "I'm sure, I'm sure," he called over his shoulder. "All the same, I think a scarf would not be _too_ great of an extravagance."

"Perhaps," Ki allowed. "We'll see what the prices are." Compared to the trees she carried, very little seemed extravagant. Her fee might have been high, but she understood it was but a fraction of what the customer had paid for the cargo. Apparently only the golden-leaved trees of the Silnian Wood would do for their estate, though there were plants aplenty native to Bitters that seemed pleasing enough to Ki's eyes. She could not understand such extravagance and wondered what manner of customer indulged in it. She supposed she should simply be glad it kept her in coin.

"Pardon," a voice lisped behind her.

Ki turned from the waterskin to find a T'cherian, eye stalks held low but focused on her face.

"Yes?" she asked. Having just wondered about the nature of her customer, she now found herself even more startled. She had never known a T'cherian to care overmuch about trees; most preferred caves and the water-smoothed stones that reminded them of their ancestral homes.

"I am searching for a man named Vandien." The T'cherian's mandibles clicked sharply on the name, rendering it almost unrecognizable had Ki not heard the same syllables mangled that way before in T'cherian serving rooms.

"I see," said Ki, no less mystified, though she had a nagging sense she recognized the T'cherian. "What--"

Vandien had already rounded the wagon again and set the feed sack aside to come up and bow to their visitor. "Ah, Web Shell! It is a pleasure to greet you once more."

Ki shot him a narrow glance. She knew that cheerful, slightly frantic tone, and it often came with trouble. But Web Shell seemed, as best as she could tell from a T'cherian, to genuinely share Vandien's claimed pleasure.

"Ah! You are here, and just in time, just in time."

"Just in time for what?" Vandien asked.

"Why, for the hatching of your children."

Vandien's demeanor shifted in an instant. "My children?" he asked, an edge to his voice.

It was a sore point with him, Ki knew, and that was why she did not revel in the sense of being, for once, a step ahead. Her sense of recognition had finally solidified, and that meant she could piece together the T'cherian's intent. No doubt Vandien would have done the same had he not been stuck on old wounds. "He means the skeel."

Web Shell's eye stalks bobbed rapidly. "Yes, yes. At first, when they began to swell, I worried for their health. Then, when I realized what had occurred, I became angry! We do not often let our skeel breed, you know. The eggs are difficult, difficult to care for. One must keep them warm and damp, and it is not easy to do without a proper cave. But I realized you must have been overcome by your love for my team. You must have wanted children of your own! My heart softened. And I knew, I knew you would come back for them, as you have."

"Certainly your team did all that I asked of them and more," Vandien said gravely, his hurt set aside as he tried to untangle the T'cherian's words. "I hold them in deepest respect. And if my presence would aid with the, ah, hatching, I would be pleased to assist."

"Come, come!" Web Shell chittered, and began to scurry away without looking to see if Vandien followed. Vandien cast a meaningful look at Ki, but she shook her head.

"I can wait for my customer alone," she said, rebuffing Vandien's silent plea without guilt. Vandien was prone to getting himself into fixes. This seemed a small enough thing; let him get himself out on his own.

"Oh, very well," he said loftily as he passed her. "But none of my 'children' shall carry your name."

"See that they don't!" she shot back, and, turning her head to hide her smile, went to set out food for the team.

* * *

Ki busied herself about the wagon with chores left untended on the trail. Shortened days left little evening light for mending socks or sanding rough spots on the wagon. As the market grew more lively with the start of the day, however, she began to regret not sending Vandien for tea before he went on his own errand. Here in town she could not light a fire without upsetting some authority, and she did not want to leave team and cargo surrounded by strangers. She had chewed through the better part of a loaf of hard bread and begun to think seriously about hiring a message boy to fetch her refreshment before a woman at last presented herself in front of the wagon.

She was human, or so Ki assumed from her posture and gait. Her entire body from head to ankle was swathed in green veils that swirled in the wind, so that she might as well have been a tree for all the details Ki could pick out of her form. Ki had seen the style of dress before among the wealthiest families in Sil Deep, and she had thought the effect ridiculous then.

Her opinion did not change when the woman tried to sweep back her face veil to announce, "You must be Ki," only to have the wind promptly press it back in place.

"I am," Ki agreed, and waited patiently while the woman reached behind her head to unknot a cord and remove the entire assemblage.

"I can see I'll have to make some adjustments, living here," she said. "Do you have the saplings? Oh," she added, "I'm Weilin." She was halfway around the wagon already, and Ki trailed in her wake.

"I do," Ki said. "Ten trees, as agreed, for five tallies on delivery." The price was not small, but then, neither had been the distance.

"Yes, certainly," Weilin said, distracted by the sight of the trees. She swung herself onto the back to the wagon before Ki could protest and began inspecting the burlap wrapped tightly around one root ball. "It's all been arranged. I don't carry the money with me, of course, but you'll have it in hand as soon as you reach Karn Hall."

Ki froze. "Karn Hall?"

"That's what the locals call it," Weilin agreed. "The remnant of some ancient family, no doubt. I'll have to come up with a better name once I'm fully settled. I would have had Daweed give you the address when you picked up the saplings in Sil Deep, but I didn't yet know then where I would be living. It took some time to find a suitable place, let me tell you! So many cramped, low ceilings, so many flat, empty fields. Even Karn Hall--well, so much stone, so many damaged trees." She clucked her tongue. "No wonder it sold for a bargain. But it will clean up nicely, I'm sure. And once these grow, it will feel just like home." She patted the root ball again, fingering the burlap as though it were fine silk.

"I'm sure it will," Ki managed, though to her the wizard Dresh's home could never be anything but ill-favored. She did not relish the thought of delivering her cargo there, and for a brief moment wondered if she could plausibly delay until Vandien returned. But she had no idea how long the skeel's hatching would take, and if the hall was under new ownership there was nothing there that could harm her. She would be embarrassed to have Vandien think her spooked by memory and shadow. "Shall I deliver them now?"

"The sooner, the better!" Weilin bunched her skirt in both hands and pulled herself onto the wagon, setting between two trees. With her garment smoothed back in place, she looked almost a part of them, though green next to their gold.

Ki debated offering the woman a seat at the front of the wagon, where the ride would no doubt be smoother, but she did not relish her chattering for even a trip as short as the drive to Karn Hall. It would be uncomfortable enough to retread that road without strange company. She set about harnessing the team methodically, ignoring the way her arms prickled whenever the name of her destination floated to mind.

* * *

Karn Hall was much improved since Ki had last seen it, the stone scrubbed clean to a shining white and the crumbling patches of masonry repaired. But the trees beyond its immediate grounds were just as Ki remembered them, still warped and broken by the wind that had chased Dresh and her from the river. Sigurd shied from their shadows, and she felt no little sympathy for him.

Ki pulled up in front of the building and set the brake, then, when no further instructions were forthcoming, went around the wagon in search of her customer. She found Weilin lying flat between two saplings with her face pressed to the leaves and her eyes closed. It took several throat-clearings to get her to stir.

"Ah!" Weilin levered herself up in a flurry of veils. "Your pardon. I've been homesick all these long months. It's hard to be away from the woods, very hard. But someone must tend to the family's business interests out here, and I have never shied from my duties."

Privately, Ki thought those interests, whatever they might be, would have been better-served by someone less easily distracted. It took several more rounds of throat-clearing before Weilin finally tore herself away from the saplings and explained that they were to come inside the house.

"For it's too early for planting them, of course, and I can't have them out in the cold, no! No more than I could leave any of my other friends from home outside, not until I build them proper refuges."

With help from the dour-faced footman who came to the door at Weilin's knock, Ki shouldered the first sapling and brought it through the entry hall into the Hall. Inside, too, things seemed cleaner, though despite the scrubbed stone there was a musty scent in the air that Ki could not recall from her last visit, and a constant background hum that made her ears twitch. 

The source became apparent when they at last reached the hall where Weilin directed them to leave the sapling, for against the far wall were stacked cages and cages of iridescent birds, jewel-toned frogs, and tiny chittering rodents that clung to the inside of the wires. If this was the company Weilin kept, Ki could understand why Weilin's father had sent her to Bitters. No doubt the man had thought not sharing his home with such a raucous crowd of animals was worth the cost of putting whatever small ventures he had in Bitters under the supervision of a daughter with less than perfect business sense.

Weilin fluttered toward the cages, cooing, almost as soon as she had pointed at where to leave the tree. Ki shrugged, leaned the sapling against the wall as directed, and went back to fetch the next piece of cargo. By the time all ten trees were safely stowed, Weilin had worked her way down the wall of cages, greeting each of their inhabitants, feathered, scaled, or furred. It still took another round of throat-clearing for Weilin to tear herself away.

"Oh! You'll be wanting to talk payment, then."

"I would like to settle accounts," Ki agreed, wondering what there was to talk about and fearing another customer pushing to bargain on a fee already settled.

"Five tallies, of course," Weilin said as she led Ki back to the front of the hall, showing she perhaps paid closer attention to her business than Ki had allowed. "But I was wondering if you might be interested in an additional job."

"I am always willing to listen," Ki said cautiously. "But if you mean for me to take something to your family in Sil Deep, you must know it will need to wait until spring."

"Of course." Weilin flapped her hand and fluttered her scarves. "No, it's here that I need your help."

"I had not planned to stay in Bitters long."

"A day, only a day. Perhaps two. The old trees, you see, the twisted ones--I wonder what happened there?" Ki did not answer, and after a moment lost in thought, Weilin went on. "In any case, they must be removed. And better to do it now, and let what remains of the stump rot for a season, then when the time for spring planting comes. It's quite the task for my man, or even for what labor I could hire from the town. But you, with your fine team--why, they could have them out in a moment, couldn't they?"

"The team could do the work," Ki allowed. It was not her preferred means of earning coin, and if she had her way she would be on the road to Dyal and well away from Bitters before nightfall. The memories of her last visit to the hall still made her hands want to curl into fists. But perhaps there would be some healing in helping tear out the twisted trees, in removing the last of the signs that the wizard Dresh had ever made this place his residence. "Two days, you say? Let us say ten dru."

"Perfect!" Weilin clapped her hands. "Yes, perfect. Come back tomorrow. I'll hire men from the village to do the sawing, and you and the team can pull each stump as they finish. Only the twisted ones, mind," she added. "I miss the trees of home, but it wouldn't do to pretend this is Sil Deep. No, a mixture, that's what's called for. The old and new, a joining of people and places--yes, it will send an excellent message to those who come here to talk trade."

Privately, Ki thought most of Weilin's visitors would notice nothing about the trees around her home beyond the welcome shade they provided on warm days. But she was being paid to haul trees, not to offer advice on planting. Had she wished to do that, she would have stayed in Harper's Ford.

"Ten dru then, and five tallies today," she reminded Weilin.

"Yes, of course," Weilin said. "Only wait here a moment."

Weilin vanished into the hall again, returning in the same direction from which they had just come. There was a crescendo in background noise that no doubt marked Weilin's return to the menagerie. Ki sighed, crossed her arms, and prepared herself for a long wait.

* * *

Ki had expected to have to track Vandien down in the nearest decent tavern--if he was not still with Web Shell--but instead she found him waiting the market, a covered basket in his hands. He was swinging it back and forth with a gently rocking motion, and his gaze was so fixed that he did not notice her arrival until she had set the brake with a squeal.

One look at his face told her everything, or so she thought.

"You bought the skeel?" she asked, incredulous.

"No, no," Vandien said hastily. "One cannot buy such creatures! They are children and to be treasured as children, or so Web Shell assures me."

"Oh, does he?" Ki asked. "And did that lessen the price?"

"There was no price, truly, Ki. Web Shell tells me that as I am the one who aided their conception, they are by rights mine. He would not hear of keeping them."

"And what are we to do with them?" She gestured at the basket. "They seem small to pull the wagon even if you wished to put Sigmund and Sigurd to pasture."

Vandien waved a hand, dismissing the concern. "I know. But I thought Web Shell was going to crawl out of his carapace in distress if I didn't take them. Full-grown skeel eat only once every nineteen days; a few babies will hardly lighten our stores between here and Dyal. Surely we can find a home for them there."

"I don't transport livestock," Ki said in warning. "And what do they eat, anyway?"

Vandien blinked. "I, ah."

"Didn't think to ask," Ki finished drily.

"No," Vandien admitted. "But surely some T'cherian can tell me. I can ask while we're taking on supplies."

"We won't be leaving just yet. I've taken on a job here in Bitters for the next two days. It starts in the morning."

Vandien brightened. "Even better! There must be a T'cherian serving room somewhere in town that sells Alys. We'll go have a drink and ask our questions, and have an afternoon of leisure."

"Leisure and taking on supplies. I do mean to leave as soon as the job is finished."

"Of course, of course." He slung the basket over one arm, and for a moment it quivered as its contents rearranged themselves. His other arm he held out to her. "After a drink."

Ki hesitated, just long enough for Vandien to note the pause. His smile faltered, but she reached out and linked her elbow around his before he could withdraw his offer.

"After a drink," she agreed, and watched his face brighten again from the corner of her eye.

* * *

They found a T'cherian serving room easily enough, though the tavern keeper had never heard of Alys. She did have a bottle of Cinmeth on hand, and so Ki had the double pleasure of drinking well and watching Vandien's exaggerated expression of suffering at being forced to consume the same brew.

"Your stomach," he said after a coughing fit that she knew from the elaborate hand gestures had been feigned, "must be made of cast iron. Do they raise Romni children on this in place of mother's milk? Is that how you bear it?"

"It's how I bear your cooking," she retorted.

"And with nothing but dried meat and roots, how should I cook better? Ah, but we'll be in funds soon. We shall purchase spices from my homeland, canella and mace, and _then_ I will show you what true cooking is."

"If feeding your skeel leaves us with any," Ki reminded him. "Perhaps." She was in truth intrigued; despite her jibe, Vandien had always had the defter hand at making stew.

"Of course, the skeel." Vandien nodded, rested his round-bottomed glass on the sand table, and beckoned the server with a two-handed gesture that mimicked the movement of eye stalks.

The T'cherian scurried over, bottle in hand, and then stopped at the sight of Vandien's still-full glass. "Yes?"

"I wondered if you might have anything in store that would suit the palates of these," Vandien asked, and tipped back the lid of the basket.

Several things happened at once. The T'cherian server scurried backward, eye stalks retracting until they were nearly inside her carapace. The basket swung backward with such violent force that both their glasses and the bottle of Cinmeth tipped over, saturating the sand. And three baby skeel swarmed onto the table and split in every direction, careening across the other patrons' plates and glasses with no regard for their cries of dismay. 

The fourth skeel landed directly in front of Ki, and with quick reflexes born of steering the wagon down many winding trails, she flipped her spilled glass to cover it and pressed down with one hand. The skeel was scarcely longer than her forefinger, but it moved with tremendous speed, whipping its hairless tail back and forth with such force that she worried the glass would shatter. Before she could come up with a better scheme for imprisonment, however, its frantic flailing brought it nose-down into the spilled Cinmeth. It sniffed, sniffed again, and then began lapping eagerly at the sand. After four gulps and a burp that made the glass vibrate, the tiny creature collapsed into a limp heap.

Ki gingerly relaxed her own fingers and took a moment to survey the inn. Half the patrons had fled. Vandien was across the table with one baby skeel firmly in hand, but it whipped back and forth, resisting every attempt to return it to the basket.

"The Cinmeth," Ki called. "They seem to like it well enough." There was still the better part of a glass left in the bottom of the spilled bottle. She slid the stopper back in place and tossed it under-handed to Vandien. 

He dropped the basket to catch it, and for a moment, as he juggled bottle, stopper, skeel, and basket, it looked as though the tiny creature would escape. But he managed at last to empty the bottle into the basket, and after one sniff the creature swarmed after the liquor. He slammed the basket shut. 

"I've got one," Ki said. "Where are the others?"

One, it emerged, was being held in the server's pinchers. The other had holed up in the kitchen, and it took the better part of a second bottle of Cinmeth to coax it out again. The process would have been painful enough without the endless remonstration of the server, who quickly revealed herself as also part-owner of the inn.

"Babies! Only babies, and you take them out into the world. It is as though you know nothing of caring for skeel."

"Perhaps you could enlighten us," Ki asked, settling back on her heels and leaving Vandien to the task of waving a Cinmeth-scented rag behind the storage shelf.

The server's eye stalks did not even swivel in Ki's direction, and she continued her rant as though there had been no interruption. Only the conclusion of Vandien's efforts--and the resulting opportunity to present them with a bill for the damages--brought the tirade to a halt.

* * *

"I did make note of a few points," Vandien said later, back at the wagon. He had set the basket securely in one corner, with a bag of beans to weigh down the lid. He held up fingers, one at a time, as he spoke. "One, they prefer to eat algae, uncooked and unseasoned. I am a disgrace for feeding them liquor."

"And yet she didn't seem inclined to stop us, if that was what would get us out of her kitchen," Ki noted.

Vandien conceded the point with a graceful nod. "Two, they drink a great deal. A waterskin every day for each might suffice, but only while they remain small. Three, they need darkness and, above all, quiet. Sound pains them before they are fully grown. Four, they will be fully grown in four years--by which point, I devotely hope, they will have long since left my care."

"They had better leave your care well before that," Ki said. "We can't carry enough water to slake their thirst, not unless we do nothing but follow the river. And the wagon may be dark, but nothing will make the wheels run silently."

Vandien slumped slightly. "I know. And yet, five, no T'cheria would take them from me, because as the man who aided their, ah, conception, I have a sacred responsibility to nurture them to adulthood." He stared at his outstretched fingers for a moment, and then drummed them lightly on the wall of the wagon. "And, I confess, I can't find it in me to abandon them on the roadside. What we need is someone who isn't T'cheria."

"I have a notion," Ki said slowly.

* * *

"So this is the home of the wizard Dresh," Vandien said, peering down the road as Karn Hall came into view.

"Was," Ki corrected. The place still made her teeth itch, but only a few of the twisted trees remained, now, and she could feel that the tension in her back was less than when she had come to begin the work yesterday, or when she had delivered the saplings two days before.

"Huh. It does have a certain majesty that False Harbor lacked, but for all that I suspect their hospitality was warmer." He reached across the seat to squeeze Ki's hand, and she let him, savoring the contrast between warm skin and cool late-autumn air. "A good thing we won't be staying the night."

"Yes, indeed," Ki agreed. "I mean us to be well down the road by nightfall." 

"I am wounded! Do you think so little of my skills? I promise you, I can strike a bargain well enough that we do not need to flee before your Weilin has second thoughts."

"I think very well of your skills," Ki said drily, and squeezed Vandien's hand in return. The market had been crowded even after nightfall, and the walls of the cuddy not enough of a shield for one used to the true privacy of the empty road. She wanted more than the touch of his hand, and if it helped drive away the last memories of the wizard Dresh, all the better.

"Oh." Vandien straightened in the seat slightly. "I shall do my best to bargain quickly, then."

"Not so quickly as all that." Ki gestured at the stumps they drove past. "I still have an honest day's work ahead of me."

"As do I." Vandien grinned and straightened his tunic, patting it free of road dust, as they pulled up in front of the hall.

Weilin herself opened the door at Vandien's knock. She blinked at him, scarcely seeming to notice the wagon. "If you're here to cut the trees, I'm afraid you've come a long walk from town for nothing. We've all the labor we need, and the job is almost done." 

Vandien bowed hastily before she could finish closing the door. "You mistake me! I did not walk from town, but rode, thanks to my good friend Ki. And I came, not in search of labor, but because she told me you had assembled a menagerie impossible to find outside of Sil Deep."

She lost her vague look, focusing on him with surprising intensity. "You won't find its like in Sil Deep either. Oh, collecting birds is fashionable enough. But they look for the ornate, the colorful. No one understands the need for a more comprehensive collection."

"No one except for you," Vandien agreed. "Which is why I had hoped you might find it in your heart to allow me a glimpse."

"They are not merely curiosities for display," Weilin warned him. "They must be treated with respect, not poked and prodded."

"Oh," Vandien said with perhaps more fervency than was called for, "believe me, I understand the need to be calm and quiet around such creatures."

Weilin cocked her head. "Are you, too, a collector?" 

"Of a sort," Vandien allowed.

"Well. If you promise not to disturb them overmuch."

Ki shook her head as the pair vanished into the hall, silently wished Vandien luck, and led the team off to their duties.

* * *

"And from there, it was simple enough," Vandien said, stretching out his legs to warm his toes by the fire. "I listened. I admired. I expressed awe. And I noted that, as she had chosen to mix the trees of her homeland with those of native birth, perhaps her collection might benefit from expansion in scope."

" _Are_ the skeel native?" Ki asked.

"I give thanks she did not ask." Vandien shrugged. "I told her honestly enough what they needed--how much to eat, how much to drink, how large they would grow. Truth to tell, I'm not sure she believed me. But she seemed fascinated by the challenge."

"I doubt your 'children' could find a better home," Ki agreed.

Vandien winced. "Could we not call them that?"

"We can do better. We can never speak of them again."

"I'll drink to that." Vandien raised his mug of tea in salute. "What shall we speak of instead?"

"I thought," Ki said, setting her own mug in the dirt, "that we might do other things than speak."


End file.
